


You Are The Light

by shamusandstone (theleaveswant)



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-29
Updated: 2009-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-12 08:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleaveswant/pseuds/shamusandstone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>are you feeling better than before?</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are The Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stainofmylove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stainofmylove/gifts).



> First season-era ficlet reposted from comments on [this post](http://shamusandstone.livejournal.com/8122.html); written for stainofmylove's prompt "Sylar/Elle: a loose interpretation of this song, points if it's depressing and PRE-beach scene.
> 
> "And I would like to cry in the car,  
> The blue violet hills and the voice of Neil Young.  
> I left the flowers outside your door,  
> Your curtains were flying,  
> Though you were not at home.
> 
> And I can only say that I have hoped for you  
> Safety from fears and darkness.  
> Are you feeling better than before?"  
> \- Innocence Mission, "You Are the Light" "

Elle twirls her fingers idly, threading blue energy between them as she slouches on the uncomfortable couch in Daddy's office, waiting for him to get off the phone. It's a one-sided conversation but she gets the gist: Sylar's been spotted in Montana. She knows better than to ask to go after him. Even if the Company were running a retrieval (and she doesn't see why they're not, except that Linderman seems not to have any interest in doing it), she wouldn't be on the team. She's a real agent now, a big girl, but it's been made clear that's one mission she's never going to pull.

Elle had a calendar once with photos of national parks, places she longed to see not because she was a fan of nature but because she'd never really seen any. There was a picture from Montana in it, a sunset staining the clouds orange and the mountains purple. Or maybe that was Wyoming.

Bored with this mode of fidgeting, she unclips the security pass from her belt loop and taps it against her palm.

She hates Glasses for covering for her, and doesn't know whether it's out of gratitude or resentment. The whole trip back from Queens to Hartsdale she'd been a wreck, sick with terror thinking about what she'd created and how Daddy would react when he heard how close she'd come to screwing it up. It was awfully rude of Bennet to swoop to her rescue, with a hand on her shoulder and a "chin up, kiddo" and a surveillance video high-light reel artfully edited to omit her failed interference play. She tried not to cry when Daddy said "well done", even though he was mostly talking to Bennet and not to her.

The next time she was in the city she made up an excuse to go back to his shop and his apartment. The former had a sign on the door: "closed until further notice". No apology for the inconvenience. The latter was still his residence, at least according to the phone book, and there was no accumulation of uncollected mail. She checked transmission frequencies for the bugs but they were all dead—not destroyed, just ran out of batteries after three months of neglect—so she waited outside on the street. Her heart leaped with hope and fear every time the curtains fluttered but he never appeared. She stayed there until dark but though the streetlamps eventually strobed to life his never did. Relieved and disappointed, she bought a single slice of peach pie from the diner on the corner and left it in his mailbox.

Daddy finally hangs up the receiver and acknowledges her presence. He doesn't mention the call and neither does she, just takes the blue folder he hands her and walks out of the office.

She closes the door and sighs, smiling in spite of herself. He's alive. Sure, he's killing specials at an increasing rate, becoming more and more dangerous, but hey, nobody's perfect. For a while there she'd really worried that after chasing her out and killing the lamb she'd lead to him he'd wind up back on the end of that rope but it looked this cowardly lion had found his courage. Maybe she could still find him, tell him the truth and make him forgive her and they could both live, if not happily ever after, then at least not quite so miserably. She knows it's a faint hope, but what hope isn't? Just a faintly flickering little light.


End file.
